


The Worth of All Things

by kowaiyoukai



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Dark, M/M, Non-Chronological, Psychological Trauma, Wincest - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-08
Updated: 2009-01-08
Packaged: 2017-10-30 20:10:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/335598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kowaiyoukai/pseuds/kowaiyoukai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Dean comes back, everything is different.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Worth of All Things

**Author's Note:**

> Written for sin_of_pride for the 2008 [spn_giftxchnge](http://spn-giftxchnge.livejournal.com/). Challenge: "The brothers are in love and Sam becomes Dean's protector. Hurt!bottom!Dean has post traumatic stress disorder, an eating disorder, and nightmares dealing with being traumatized from hell. Angst, hurt/comfort, sex." This was a difficult challenge for me, especially because I had just finished writing a fic in a very similar style for Batman/Joker. Also, the challenge called for sex and this fic didn't call for sex. So there was disaster there. Hopefully, though, it all worked out! Beta'd by siriuslyyellow.

There were some days that Dean wondered if it had been worth it. After they killed a monster, any monster, something sinister and mythical and too evil to exist for anyone other than them, they would get back to whatever strange room they called home that week and he would try to wash it off. Before he left, when everything was brighter and he thought people deserved to be saved, Dean would stay in the shower only long enough to get the remains off. He would stand underneath the warm water and allow all of the dirt and grime and whatever else was left when the monster was gone to fall off him, circling the drain two or three times before it finally was gone. When he felt clean again, he would change into his boxers and go watch late-night infomercials with Sam, and they would argue over who got to prank call the poor bastards manning the phone lines. When it was Dean's turn, he would call and ask exactly what size of the ladies lingerie he should order for himself, or if the warrantee on the china covered damage by chainsaws, or how much resale value the gold necklace would have on eBay. When the water had dripped for long enough to make his bed damp, Dean would towel himself off, shaking his hair twice for good measure, and complain. Sam would roll his eyes and reach out, drawing Dean towards him. Sam's arms would wrap around Dean, his hands would guide until they were both laying down, and they would curl up in each other, taking comfort in their shared warmth and the knowledge that they were both okay.

Those days weren't the problem. Those days were the days he tried to remember after he got back, but they had all faded away into a dream-like haze that had him struggling, trying to push through to find what he had lost, knowing something was there but never quite able to reach it.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Sam was never able to do what he wanted to do for Dean. There were things he was able to do, like ordering his favorite foods and bandaging his cuts and scrapes and listening when Dean began to talk and not bothering him when he stopped. But Dean held him back, away from this new horror that plagued him, and even when Sam reached out, begging to help, Dean danced away, dismissing him with a glance or a casual wave of his hand.

It was impossible to understand. When Sam smiled at a few kids playing tag in a park, Dean's eyes shuttered, the light dulling in them as Sam watched. When Sam saw an elderly woman being helped to her car by her family, Dean grit his teeth, clenching them together so tightly Sam was sure they would break. When Sam shook his head fondly at a couple teasing each other in a diner, Dean stood up and left.

Sam had thought Dean would want to see people being happy. He had no idea what it had been like, could only imagine and even then he could only get so far, but Sam thought afterwards the only things he would want to see were happy ones. Sam thought that anything which bordered dangerously close to reminding Dean of what had happened should be avoided—what Sam himself could imagine wanting to avoid, if their situations were reversed. People crying, screaming, in danger and hurting—all of that would be anathema to him. He would have to give up hunting and live somewhere light, somewhere darkness never stayed for too long.

Dean wasn't like that. Dean avoided people. He avoided anyone happy, anyplace warm and bright, anything that might allow him to feel some measure of relief. Dean reveled in everything Sam would have avoided—alcohol, one-night stands, hunting. Sam didn't know how to respond to that, so he waited for Dean to come to him.

It took a long time.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

There were foreign concepts for both of them—normal things that everyone else took for granted and they could only guess at. Neither of them understood the bond between a family, the bond that everyone has from birth and almost everyone never questioned.

It wasn't that Dean questioned it. He always knew Sam was his brother, the same way he knew how to load a shotgun and which household items could be used to quickly defend against a ghost. The problem was that Dean never understood what brother meant.

By the time he realized, it was already too late.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

By the time Sam realized, Dean was already in danger. Sam had thought Dean was focused on the time he had spent away, and he was right, but he hadn't realized the extent. He had thought it was only the dreams, and they were more than enough. Dean moved like a zombie throughout the day and wanted Sam to think he was fine. Dean always wanted Sam to think he was fine. Sam could only wonder how imperceptive Dean thought he was when he found Dean retching in the bathroom and, afterword, Dean had given him a cocky grin and blamed it on the crappy take-out.

Dean could blame anything on anything for any reason. He was good at assigning blame wrongly, at misleading people into thinking they were or were not at fault. He had convinced a five-year-old Sam that spilling juice all over their father's notes wasn't his fault, even though he had been told repeatedly not to go near the table where they were working. Dean had also convinced a seventeen-year-old Sam that losing their newest gun was his fault, even though Dean had been the last one to hold it and Sam hadn't been allowed near it.

This was Dean's gift, one of the few gifts he had that weren't obvious within five minutes of meeting him. But he couldn't convince Sam that he had eaten bad food four times in the same week, regardless of the excuses and accusations and complaints that were tossed around like daggers, like a white flag.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Once reality started to fade, and everything which had come before began to disappear, what was left was only when he had been gone and after he had returned. In consciousness, Dean could control his thoughts to an extent. He could live in the moment, he could curse and drink and fuck and hunt and do anything that took his mind off it. Sam was there—always there—a constant presence that never failed to distract him, but the kind of distraction Sam provided wasn't what Dean wanted. What Dean wanted was something hard and cruel, something malicious that could replace the other memories until the older memories faded completely and all he would remember would be nights of drunken encounters and the bloodiest hunts. All Sam could do was stand there and be Sam—caring, comforting, emotional, ready to understand no matter what Dean told him.

Dean didn't want Sam to understand. He wanted Sam to rage, to claw his way through Dean's haze, tear a hole with his fucking teeth right through it, and finally allow some of the light that Sam radiated to pour onto him, covering just enough of him to give the rest hope that more would follow. But Sam never raged. Sam treated Dean as though he was made of porcelain—something to be admired but not touched, something that would break if handled too often, something that needed to be kept locked away to be protected from what threatened to harm it. Dean wasn't made of porcelain. And if he was, he was exactly like that china he had mocked before he left—ripped apart by a chainsaw and unable to be replaced by the manufacturer. If Dean was like that, he knew he was shattered.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The girls that floated around them, able to see the connection between them but neither identify nor penetrate it, came and went with various levels of meaning. Jess was someone who had left a large impact on Sam, in a similar but drastically different way to how their mother had left her mark on Dean. All the other girls—Cassie, Sarah, Layla, Madison, Jo, Ruby, Bela, Anna, nameless girls in a thousand dimly lit bars, girls with smiles brighter than the sun, girls who looked at you like they knew you were thinking about it, girls who could convince them every lie was truth, girls both naked and clothed, both sheltered and shocking, both ignorant and wise, both real and imagined—none of them mattered. They were remembered in fragments, a smile or gesture or turn of phrase, and everything else was lost about them in mere hours.

For Dean it didn't matter. Even before he had left, Dean had never wanted a true connection with anyone else. Dean was able to give himself in full—every grin and grimace and heartfelt insult—to one person only. He couldn't split himself up any more than an electron could—he was a single unit, causing things to react around him, agitating and frustrating those who knew him. Because of this, there was never an option. One person had claimed him before he had realized, and anyone else who tried was simply led around by false gestures until they were sick of it.

Dean didn't realize the gestures were false. He didn't realize he had already given himself away.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Sam heard Dean wake up every time. It was impossible to sleep with Dean lying awake all night. So he didn't. Instead, he stared at Dean through one open eye and tried to imagine what had happened. This wasn't like when he had been at Stanford, which was also a part of Dean that Sam had no access to. Sam heard stories about that time, and although Dean didn't like to talk about it Sam knew the topic wasn't completely off-limits. Despite himself, Dean seemed to enjoy hearing about Sam's adventures in college, and Sam actually was curious about how Dean and their father had gotten along without Sam around to cause tension.

But this was different. Dean never talked about when he had been gone and Sam had no idea how to broach the topic. Dean didn't want to talk, he didn't want comfort, he didn't want anything. Sam knew that was all a lie, but Dean was stubborn and Sam always gave in because when he pressed Dean, his older brother's eyes would get dark and he would stare at scenes Sam knew he would never fully understand even if Dean was willing to describe them. Dean didn't always scream, but every time Sam pressed he was guaranteed to hear Dean in the middle of the night when even Dean didn't know the sounds he was making.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

When he wondered if it had been worth it, what he meant was coming back.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Each day was different, but mostly it went like this. Dean would act as though he was fine, but Sam would notice that he flinched when people touched him unexpectedly and that he grit his teeth when someone yelped or shouted, even in jest. He would eat just enough to keep Sam from shoving more food down his throat, but his face was still whiter than usual and his eyes were still darting around, checking and re-checking all of the people for any signs that they were more than they appeared.

Dean was balancing on a high wire, arms stretched out to both sides and giving all of his energy simply not to fall. Sam knew something would snap—Dean or the wire—and all Sam could do was set up the safety net.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

After he got back, when everything was darker and he thought people deserved to be punished, Dean would stay in the shower for over an hour after every hunt. He would stand underneath the scalding water and scrub his skin with his nails, scratching off everything that was there and nothing that wasn't. When the water turned cold and Sam began knocking, he would change into a t-shirt and sweatpants and go lay down on his bed. Sometimes Sam would talk to him and sometimes he wouldn't, but Dean never answered and eventually Sam would go to sleep on the other bed. Dean would lie in his own damp bed and stare at the ceiling, forcing himself to stay awake until exhaustion overtook him.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

After another unremarkable hunt, Sam was exhausted. He was lying on his bed, waiting for the shower, and when the water turned off and Dean came out, instead of getting up Sam simply laid there. The door clicking shut behind Dean seemed overly loud in the silence, but Sam was tired from living so hard and knew the routine.

The bed creaked when Dean climbed on top of it, and Sam felt his weight shift and the mattress bend. Sam looked at Dean, who was looking away at whatever it was he was seeing, and stretched out a hand to place his fingers gently on Dean's shoulder. Dean shuddered and looked at Sam, eyes wide and alert, and Sam tried not to do anything that came naturally to him. Instead, he just let his fingers fall from Dean, allowing Dean to make whatever choice he had to.

Dean laid down slowly, body shifting awkwardly as though he had forgotten how to do anything gentle. When his limbs had fallen to the bed and seemed content to stay as they were—skewed and twisted, but lying still for the first time in too long—Dean looked at Sam's chin and opened his mouth to speak.

Sam listened and understood the only way he knew how. When that wasn't enough, he wrapped his arms around Dean, drawing him close, and ignored everything Dean wanted him to ignore. Sam didn't notice the damp spot on his shirt, the way Dean's fingers clenched painfully into his side, or the silent tremble that wracked through Dean's body.

When Dean turned his head slightly to kiss Sam, it was both surprising and entirely right.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

For Sam, it mattered. There was trust in everything he did, an honesty he lived with that he couldn't ever get rid of. If one of the girls began to matter to him, he had to choose between them. There could never be two important people in his life. It felt wrong to be so close to one person while claiming to belong to another.

Once everyone he tried to belong to started leaving him, Sam realized he had only ever belonged to the one person he felt closest to. In one sense, it was a relief. In another, it was a nightmare.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

There was something safe in the boundaries Sam provided, something that allowed Dean freedom and constriction which was somehow right. He could move until he got too far, he could sleep until he got too restless, he could hunt until he got too tense, and Sam would be there, pulling him back, reminding him what it was Dean saved. What it was Dean sacrificed himself for because he couldn't live without it.

 

_fin._


End file.
